The Dono Guide to Winning at Scrabble and Life

More or less

Holy cow, you might exclaim—I’d be happy with a guide to winning at Scrabble or winning at life, but I can get both in the same list? And it’s included in my free subscription?

Yes, you can. And yes, it is. And it starts in the next paragraph.

1. To maximize your score on the opening play of the game, put your highest-scoring letter in the 2L square five squares left or right of center. Left is usually better, as I’ll show you. Let’s say your rack includes the letters R O T W H and a couple of others unimportant to this example. You could make WORTH for 30 points (W, 4 x 2L = 8, O = 1, R = 1, T = 1, H = 4, all on the 2W center square = 30). You could put THROW in the same position but only get 24 points (T, 1 x 2L = 2, H = 4, R = 1, O = 1, W = 4, all times two for 24). This is probably the most I’ve used simple algebraic equations in my life.

2. If you’re playing Scrabble while also being the governor of one of the 50 states, don’t advocate for school vouchers, which would take tax dollars away from public schools and give them to people who want to send their kids to private schools. This is a slap in the face of school districts that are already operating on shoestring budgets, and essentially diverts taxpayer money into the pockets of wealthy people. That’s not a good look. It looks in fact like you’re receiving briefcases full of cash from somewhere.

3. Why is it better to make your first play on the 2L square left of center instead of the one on the right? Let’s say you wanted to play the word THROW and get 30 points for it. You could do that by placing the W on the 2L square right of center. But now you’re three letters away from a 3W, and if your opponent happens to have an I N and G in the rack, they could make THROWING and pick up a sweet 45 points. Watch out for verbs that can be made into their progressive forms. “ING” is a pretty common suffix.

4. A short common word that nets you 20 points is better than a long impressive word that nets you nine. By the same token, if you’re sitting in judgment of a president who has broken numerous laws and been utterly derelict in his duty to uphold the Constitution, don’t vote to acquit him just because he’s from the same party you are. It makes you look like you have no integrity.

5. If your rack has lots of O’s and U’s and your opponent is up by, say, 40 points or less, it’s worth it to do a tile swap. It’s hard to make anything decent with those letters.

6. If your rack has lots of O’s and U’s and you’re a member of the state or federal legislature, don’t author or support bills that marginalize and make life more difficult for trans people just because you think it’ll appeal to your bigoted constituents and make them want to vote to keep you in your cushy job for another term. Doing this makes you look like a complete prick.

7. Don’t use a blank to extend a word that’s already a word (e.g. turning FARM into FARMS) unless that extension takes you to a 2W or 3W square. Similarly, try never to put a blank tile on a 2L or 3L square because anything times zero is zero.

8. Don’t cheat by using the online Scrabble “helpers” and don’t claim to be a follower of Jesus if you’re not going to heed his admonition that starts out “Whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers…” You’re not fooling anybody.

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One more Scrabble thought

I have a number of regular online Scrabble opponents, including a bunch of assorted randos, some bots pretending to be randos, and one of my best high school friends Randy Clift, who is neither rando nor bot but who has a better record in our head-to-head games (although I’m ahead, for now, in the game pictured above). Should we ever find ourselves at a class of 1978 reunion together, I would stand on a table and announce that Randy Clift is better at Scrabble than I am.

If he asked me to. But he’s a pretty good guy so I don’t think he would.